With World Animal Day coming up early next month, animal rights advocates yesterday called on the government to impose additional charges in the pet trade to safeguard animal welfare and announced a collective crawl — a literal one — to increase public awareness of the subject.
The eight-day collective crawl, which starts today, will be held in Taipei City and Taipei County, organizers said.
“When you crawl, you will know the fear and helplessness a dog feels when it is abandoned by its owner,” Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST) director Chen Yu-min (陳玉敏) said.
“We want to draw the attention of both domestic and international media to the reasons why Taiwan has failed to solve the problems created by stray cats and dogs after all these years,” Chen said.
The Animal Protection Act (動物保護法) came into force 12 years ago. Aside from the Taipei City Government, which has an Animal Protection Office, animal protection is mostly handled by the agriculture bureaus of local governments, Chen said.
A majority of local governments entrust cleaning squads from their environmental protection bureaus to catch stray animals and the process is often gory and cruel, she added.
Although he is physically disabled, Huang Tai-shan (黃泰山) said he would join the campaign and crawl alongside others.
Many dog breeders raise their dogs in filthy conditions, he said, adding that breeders either throw or give away dogs to shelters that are unable to breed anymore.
“They [breeders] reap the profits and leave the problem to society,” Huang said.
“It is taxpayers who end up having to deal with the problem, while the animals go through tremendous suffering. We therefore call on those who trade in pets to pay a special charge specifically meant to enhance animal welfare,” Huang added.
Turning to the importance of having an “animal protection police,” EAST executive director Chu Tseng-hong (朱增宏) said at present animal protection personnel did not have the power to arrest individuals who engage in animal cruelty or the authority to control traffic when an animal is involved in a car accident.
The Council of Agriculture said in a statement that whether there should be an animal protection police was up to local governments to decide.
The Taipei City Government is the only local government that has a specific administrative authority to protect animal rights, it said, adding that few local administrations had the finances to do so.
The Executive Yuan yesterday approved a southwestern extension of the Sanying MRT Line from New Taipei to Bade District (八德) in Taoyuan, with a goal of starting construction by late 2026. The 4.03-kilometer extension, featuring three new stations, will run from the current terminus at Yingtao Fude Station (LB12) in New Taipei City to Dannan Station (LB14), where it will connect with Taoyuan’s Green Line, New Taipei City Metro Corp said in a statement. This extension will follow the completion of core Sanying Line, a 14.29-kilometer medium-capacity system linking Tucheng (土城), Sansia (三峽)
CARGO LOSS: About 50 containers at the stern of the ‘Ever Lunar’ cargo ship went overboard, prompting the temporary closure of the port and disrupting operations Evergreen Marine Corp, Taiwan’s largest container shipper, yesterday said that all crew members aboard the Ever Lunar (長月) were safe after dozens of containers fell overboard off the coast of Peru the previous day. The incident occurred at 9:40am on Friday as the Ever Lunar was anchored and waiting to enter the Port of Callao when it suddenly experienced severe rolling, Evergreen said in a statement. The rolling, which caused the containers to fall, might have been caused by factors including a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in Russia, poor winter sea conditions in South America or a sudden influx of waves,
The Ministry of Culture yesterday officially launched the “We TAIWAN” cultural program on Osaka’s Nakanoshima sandbank, with the program’s mascot receiving overwhelming popularity. The cultural program, which runs from Aug. 2 to 20, was designed to partner with and capitalize on the 2025 World Expo that is being held in Osaka, Japan, from April 13 to Oct. 13, the ministry said. On the first day of the cultural program, its mascot, a green creature named “a-We,” proved to be extremely popular, as its merch was immediately in high demand. Long lines formed yesterday for the opening
BE CAREFUL: The virus rarely causes severe illness or death, but newborns, older people and those with medical conditions are at risk of more severe illness As more than 7,000 cases of chikungunya fever have been reported in China’s Guangdong Province this year, including 2,892 new cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said it is monitoring the situation and considering raising the travel notice level, which might be announced today. The CDC issued a level 1 travel notice, or “watch,” for Guangdong Province on July 22, citing an outbreak in Foshan, a manufacturing hub in the south of the province, that was reported early last month. Between July 27 and Saturday, the province reported 2,892 new cases of chikungunya, reaching a total of 7,716
RSS